Market Review - Poynton

Our local area

Poynton remains a popular place to live. It is dominated by family housing, with sales prices averaging around £260,000 in the last 12 months. Up until recently it has been relatively undiscovered with low rates of turnover as residents remain in their existing homes for many years. While sales in the past year were around a fifth higher than in the previous 12 months, this still equates to just 253 sales in total, around 4.3% of all private housing stock in the area.

All this is set to change with the construction of the new airport link road from Manchester Airport to Poynton. Initial concerns led to small house price falls. However, greatly improved connectivity is now expected to boost business demand, leading to job creation and higher demand for housing. Potential vendors anticipating this upturn have been holding back, hoping to profit from price increases. This, and other market conditions, has kept stock levels low.

The bigger picture

The UK housing market has proved resilient since the EU referendum, supported by economic performance that has exceeded expectations. However, official Brexit negotiations are yet to begin and financial markets are still unsettled by the uncertainty. Activity rates across the housing market are more subdued than a year ago, mortgage lending is down and, as a result, transactions have dipped by 8.2% (HMRC). The lack of available stock however, has supported house price increases at both national and regional levels.

Meanwhile, a pick up in the availability of finance to homebuyers and continued low mortgage rates could boost transaction levels at the beginning of 2017. This, combined with low stock levels and signs of improved demand, is likely to exert some upward pressure on prices in the short term. But there is a risk that a weakening economy could undermine demand and prices. As such we are forecasting a price fall of 0.25% in 2017.